A/N: So, someone said they'd love it if I wrote a Rand/Moridin fic. I swore that that was something I was never going to write. And... this happened the next day. I'm not sorry. Except maybe for the Evanescence title.

Rand al'Thor was dying. He knew this with a clarity that should have been frightening, but oddly wasn't. He wasn't in pain — some moments it felt as if he had no body capable of feeling pain, but then he would feel himself draw a breath and the wound on his side would twinge like a very distant shadow of the pain that had used to be a constant part of him for so long now. He was aware of people around him; sometimes there were more, sometimes just one or two, but he was never left alone.

And of course, he was never truly alone. He was… aware… of the other one, too, lying on a bed not far from him. Moridin. Ishamael. Elan. His mortal enemy who had once — literally a lifetime ago — been a friend.

Elan was dying, too, except that he was dying in the spirit whereas for Rand it was the body that was failing at long last. In a way, Elan had been dying for a long time, much longer than Rand — as Rand al'Thor — had been alive.

Rand felt sorry for him.

Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope, had been a monster, and in some ways Moridin had been worse, even though his madness had been more contained. But in the end, all he had wanted was for it to be over. That, Rand could sympathise with; he had been on the brink of ending the world, himself, not too many months back. If it had been Elan that day on the top of Dragonmount, the world would have ended. But then, Elan had never known the kind of love Rand al'Thor had known.

Each time we live, we get to love again.

He hoped that was true and that Elan might be reborn to a happier life. He believed it was so. Light, he willed it to be so, for the sake of the friend he had failed.

It was night — he knew that much, for the tent was nearly empty. Only one other person was there, asleep, balanced precariously on the folding chair in the corner, The Travels of Jain Farstrider about to fall from his hands.

Not quite awake but neither quite asleep, Rand could feel the connection with Elan clearer than ever. The bitter loneliness of that fading consciousness struck him like a dagger in the gut, and Rand's heart ached to do something about it. On death's doorstep, the idea of offering comfort to his nemesis did not seem at all as ludicrous as it might have.

He wasn't sure how he managed it — he didn't think he had physically moved — but suddenly Rand found himself next to Elan on the narrow bed. He draped his arm across the other man's chest — his body felt heavy; not much longer, now — and after a moment he felt Elan's arm curl around his waist. This close, Rand wasn't sure where he ended and where Elan began. And he knew that Elan felt it too; the half of him that was Elan's fading spirit felt wryly amused, but genuinely grateful.

I win, Lews Therin, he thought he heard Elan's voice say in his mind. It's finally over.

Yes, Rand replied in a similar manner. But this time that doesn't mean I have to lose.

No, came the response, ever fainter, in a tone of bewildered delight. You're right, it doesn't.

Rand raised his hand — his left hand — to stroke Elan's hair — red hair — gently and placed a kiss on his forehead. Elan sighed softly. He was nearly gone now.

The sudden commotion in the tent jolted Rand towards awareness; he could hear his father calling for someone — Nynaeve? — and then voices were speaking all at once, asking questions — How had the dying Dragon Reborn managed to get up and in the other bed without making a sound? And why would he do such a thing? — and making a terrible fuss. Rand wished they would be quiet and let him just hold Elan for a moment longer…

But of course they did no such thing. Elan was lifted from his arms and placed back on the other bed. It took less than an hour, after that, until the battered body, bearing unhealable wounds and short a hand, drew its last breath. Until Elan was gone.

The world wept for the Lord Dragon, who had bought peace with his blood, given his life for theirs. Alone in his tent — finally truly alone — Rand al'Thor wept for Elan Morin Tedronai.